Witness Statement: Reza Azad

15. I heard, and once or twice I saw, other political prisoners who were returned to the Komiteh to entrap others. The authorities would set up “appointments” in which current prisoners would be used to entrap other wanted individuals who had not yet been arrested.

16. One case involved a young male prisoner who had been severely tortured all over his body. He was in the cell next to me so I could hear the sounds of the authorities torturing him. Before they began beating him with a cable, I heard the torturers ask where they should hit him because he was injured all over. The torturers proceeded to hit him with cables and interrogate him. There was a sense of urgency to make arrests, and entrap remaining wanted individuals. The authorities were not about to let any opportunity for arrests pass them by.

17. About a week after I was first brought to the Komiteh, I was finally taken to Evin prison.

Arrival at Evin

18. Upon arrival at Evin, prisoners were taken to the central office. There, prisoners were divided up and sent to different units in Evin.

19. I was taken to Ward 209 Unit 6 of the prison. In that unit, the revolutionary prosecutor of Evin interrogated members of groups alleged to be muharib, or enemies of God.4 Unit 6 was designated for members of the Fedaian, the Combatant Organization God. In sum, the Unit 6 was responsible for interrogating groups with leftist political leanings that wanted to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

20. For instance, Unit 5 was largely for interrogating members of the Hizb-i Tudeh-i Iran (The Party of the Iranian Masses) or Tudeh Party.5 This Unit did not have torture equipments.

4Muharib means “waging war on God”.

5 The Tudeh party was a political party formally established in the 1940s in Iran. The party subscribed to Marxist- Leninist ideology and presented itself as democratic, anti-colonial and anti-fascist. The Tudeh party initially threw its support behind Ayatollah Khomeini in the lead-up to the Islamic Revolution, but later came into conflict with the Islamic Regime.